The Reformation was the period of the swift emergence of new Christian denominations opposed to official Catholicism in the 16th century. However, as suggested by the plural term ‘denominations,’ it was not a single uniform process, and the umbrella term covers numerous and varying religious teachings. The two most notable branches were the Lutheran and Calvinist Reformations, each rooted in the historical circumstances of the region and society that brought them into existence. While the history of Lutheranism reflected the German princes’ opposition to the growing power of the Catholic Hapsburg emperors, the emergence of Calvinism reflected the demand for spiritual and social discipline in a turbulent age.
Martin Luther, the single person most responsible for the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation, structured his teaching as an opposition to the official hierarchy of the Catholic Church. In 1517, he openly challenged the practice of indulgences – the idea of divine grace accumulated through Christians’ pious actions and distributed by the Pope as the head of the Church. According to Luther, this practice was not only a sin of simony but also the subversion of personal responsibility for following the Commandments. He insisted that it was not the humans’ good deeds but solely God’s mercy that could lead to salvation. By extension, it meant that doing good things was an effect and not a cause of being saved, and the Church had no role as an arbiter of salvation.
Both the Pope and the Hapsburg emperor of the Holy Roman Empire opposed Luther’s teachings as a threat to their authority. However, lesser German princes viewed it as a justification for greater autonomy, to the point of Frederick III “the Wise” of Saxony protecting Luther in 1520 despite the latter’s ex-communication. The fact that the dynamic of Lutheran Protestantism was as much about politics as it was about faith is evident from the early religious ears in Germany. When Charles V attempted to reestablish religious unity, both Lutheran and Catholic princes opposed him as a threat to their autonomy. As such, the dynamic of the Lutheran Reformation was largely caused by the tension between the centralizing intent of the Catholic Hapsburg empire and the lesser German states.
Calvinist Reformation did not have such prominent political roots but reflected the social demands of the time. Having begun his preaching in 1536 in Geneva, Calvin went further than Luther by stressing the absolute predetermination of salvation or damnation. Instead of performing good deeds simply as a consequence of being saved through divine mercy, the believers had to do that to maintain the glory of God. When Calvin won power over Geneva by 1541, he created a society of rigid piety enforced through inspections, espionage, and executions. However, people often met these measures as a welcome exercise in the divinely ordained discipline. In this respect, the dynamic of the Calvinist Reformation reflected society’s need for social order in times of political and economic turmoil.
In short, the dynamics of both Lutheran and Calvinist Reformations reflected the major historical trends of the time. The Lutheran Reformation, with its emphasis on the opposition to the Church hierarchy, was closely related to the German princes’ resistance to centralizing the effort of the Catholic Hapsburg emperors. The Calvinist Reformation stressing rigorously enforced discipline reflected the demand for a social order that could provide psychological comfort in troubled times.